Labour Day is an annual and global holiday to celebrate the achievements of workers around the world. For most countries, Labour Day is linked with International Workers’ Day, which occurs on May 1. For other countries, Labour Day is celebrated on a different date, often one with special significance for the labour movement in that country.

Across Canada, Labour Day is a public holiday that is observed on the first Monday in September every year. This year, Labour Day is Monday September 4, 2017. Government bodies and agencies, as well as most businesses, are closed on Labour Day.

Justice Firestone of the Ontario Superior Court recently decided that back–to–work legislation introduced in 2011 aimed at striking postal workers from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers was an unjustified violation of the Union’s rights to freedom of association and expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, the judge retroactively declared the legislation of no force or effect.

Labour Day originates in the labour union movements of the 1800s as a way to celebrate the social and economic advancements and to pay tribute to the driving force of our economy. The history of Labour Day continued to be connected with organized labour. Initially, the first unofficial “Labour Days” in Canada were actually protests […]